City must deal with dog problem

The City of Monroe needs to move - and move now - to address the overwhelming problem of stray and unsecured animals.

For the second time this year, animals at Louisiana Purchase Gardens & Zoo were attacked and killed by dogs.

Monroe police were notified Thursday morning that a pack of dogs entered the zoo and killed three African scimitar oryx, one guanaco and one addax antelope.

These exotic animals - the addax is considered critically endangered in the wild - were on loan from other zoos. All are substantial in size, weighing up to the 200-pound range.

Zoo director Joe Clawson said five dogs attacked the animals. Two of them were shot and killed by zoo personnel, while one escaped and the remaining two were caught and removed by parish animal control.

On Jan. 6, a pack of dogs attacked two Boer goats at the zoo. The goats suffered injuries so severe they had to be euthanized.

It's sad, injurious to the city's reputation, potentially expensive and, quite frankly, dangerous that the city is so slow to act to address this problem.

Would these dogs have attacked children playing in the nearby park? They certainly are more vulnerable and weigh less than the animals killed in this latest incident.

It's time to enforce leash laws and aggressively move on packs of strays.

As we have stated before in encouraging city officials to take our animal overpopulation situation seriously, it is only a matter of time before this problem becomes a real tragedy.

That is something that no one wants.

The editorials in this column represent the opinions of The News-Star's editorial board, composed of President and Publisher David B. Petty, Executive Editor Kathy Spurlock and community representatives Kay Kellogg Katz, Harris Brown and Will Sutton.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

City must deal with dog problem

The City of Monroe needs to move - and move now - to address the overwhelming problem of stray and unsecured animals.For the second time this year, animals at Louisiana Purchase Gardens & Zoo were